A Song of Souls
by EquusGold
Summary: 'A desolate howl rang out, echoing chillingly through the hills and Thorin felt a shiver race down his spine. It could not be. Not here, not now.' – A Song of Souls. The responsibility, the pain, the guilt; never before had Thorin wished so fiercely to be a common dwarf.


A desolate howl rang out, echoing chillingly through the hills, vales and valleys of the mountains. An answering call responded to the first and Thorin Oakenshield felt a shiver race its way down his spine.

_It could not be. Not here, not now. _

"What was that?" one of the dwarves asked. His name was Gorr and he was yet barely out of his majority.

"Wargs," Dwalin snarled back, axes already in hand. The howls had not seemed nearby but resonance in the mountains could be deceiving and made distance impossible to tell accurately.

"Wargs?" Gorr parroted, a frightened tenor lacing his voice. "But there's not been warg trouble here about since …"

_Azanulbizar. _

"Aye laddie," Balin responded to the unfinished sentence, worry creasing his brow. His snowy beard nearly glowing in the fading daylight. Thorin gritted his teeth at the mere thought of orcs and wargs, even as his heart pounded with anxiety. His kin were out here, alone and unprotected. His brother-in-law and heavily pregnant sister would have little chance of survival alone if the wargs picked up their scent and traced it back to their abode.

A chill swept through the Durin prince as an image of his golden-haired nephew flashed into his mind, his skin pale and bloodied, form still, so unlike the bright, energetic child he had come to know.

"Thorin," Dwalin's voice called him back to reality as he eagerly shook his mind free of the horrid images. "Dis."

It was all that needed to be said and then Thorin was running, his feet pounding a steady, solid rhythm against the well-worn road. He heard the jingling of buckles and grunts of his companions as they fought to keep up with the exiled king's pace.

He turned at the appropriate place and felt his heart flare with sheer terror when the cries of wargs seemed to echo all around them, elongated and distorted as the sounds reverberated off the mountain stone.

There were other cries also as they drew closer to where he knew the small cottage to be, shouts of fear and anger, the shrieks of a child and woman sounding above all else. Thorin's heart swept into his throat and he ran faster, faster than he ever had in his life, his boots leaving little clouds of dust in his wake along with his companions who shouted for him to wait, to be cautious. He ignored them. His entire being burned with terror and hatred as he rounded a final bend and almost lurched straight into the hindquarters of an enormous warg.

Thorin shifted at the last minute, getting a hand up and pushing himself out of the way via a smack to the beast's haunches, his blade sliding free of its scabbard without conscious thought. The beast whirled, jaws snapping and _Deathless _swept almost effortlessly through the muscle, sinew and bone of its jaw as the blade swept across the gaping maw that was bared at him.

The beast's strained cry of pain and shock died in its throat as it crumpled at his feet but was more than enough to catch the attention of the remainder of the wargs.

"Dis!" he yelled – nay screamed- as some of the wargs continued to claw and tear at the wooden door and shutters, the rest wheeling about and steadily but surely advancing upon him. There were several of the beasts, malicious and malformed as they were. "Fildur!"

There were answering cries from within the structure but Thorin could do no more than let sheer, unadulterated relief sweep through his heart as he spun out of the way of a lunging warg, sword opening up a thick cut along its ribs. The creature snarled and lurked behind its fellows as rivulets of its blood raced through its matted fur.

Another warg leapt at him, claws sweeping and teeth bared only to go crashing down mere inches from the dwarf prince as a thrown axe embedded itself in its skull. His companions leapt to his side with fierce yells and promises of much pain for the creatures that dared to attack their own.

_Finally, _Thorin thought and the four of them tarried not a moment longer and pressed the attack against the wargs, blades sweeping and searching, cutting through fur, flesh and muscle. There was a wild, frenzied yell as Fildur came out one of the windows of the cottage in an acrobatic leap, rolling to his feet and sending a throwing axe into the neck of a warg in the same motion.

Thorin allowed himself a fleeting moment to be grateful for the dwarf's timely arrival before he noted the blood streaming from a gash on his sister's husband's head and another formidable injury to his chest. Fildur favoured his left side heavily as though he had several broken or cracked ribs. He should not have rejoined the fight.

Warg howls and dwarven battle cries rent the night, drawing more foes towards the calamity that was occurring in the otherwise peaceful mountains.

Thorin roared as a warg blindsided him, catching him in its teeth and then he felt his body slam against the stone wall and his vision burst into white patches, his body aching and burning and _screaming_ from the sheer agony puncture wounds and broken bones. When his sight returned a brief moment later he found his nose not inches from the door to the cottage. Part of one of the boards was torn away and inside in the darkness he could see the glint of dishevelled golden hair, a glint of a knife and wide, pale blue eyes looking back at him, scared but fiercely determined.

The king-in-exile felt an arc of pain through his chest as visions of his brother's broken and bloodied body flashed through his mind. The pain of a warg clamping its teeth around his arm and wrenching felt nothing compared to the excruciating anguish in his heart.

~ ( ) ~ ( ) ~ ( ) ~

**Author's Note**

**This is another piece that has been living on my computer for a while and since I haven't uploaded anything recently I thought I should throw it up. I hope enjoyed. This will centre around the death of Fili and Kili's father.**


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